


I Believe

by Etherithical



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: But also less than my other Ninjago fic, Character Death, Depression, Don't judge meaning and life on what's put into this fic, F/M, I don't have many tags for this except I'm so burnt out, I want to sleep, Implied/Referenced Torture, Jay angst, Jay needs help, Jay whump, Minor Character Death, Murder, Not A Happy Ending, Poverty, References to Depression, kind of a psa, loss of meaning, now, read the notes, someone help him, this one is sad guys
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-21
Updated: 2021-02-21
Packaged: 2021-03-19 00:02:25
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,952
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29617509
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Etherithical/pseuds/Etherithical
Summary: He closed his eyes, his star speckled eyes. “Someday, when all this is over and we don’t have to fight, we’ll be able to see the stars every night,” he mumbled, falling asleep with each passing second. “Just you wait and see. When we’ve brought light back to the world, you’ll know it, too.”It was a fantasy, one of his many daydreams about a perfect world devoid of suffering, when they didn’t have to fight an endless war anymore. Pure fiction, she thought, for such utopias were not real. Despite this, she would not wake him from his dreams, oh no, at least he still had them.If only he knew the truth.
Relationships: Nya/Jay Walker
Comments: 16
Kudos: 17





	I Believe

**Author's Note:**

> I promise I’m working on Light Shine, it’s just that I’m in the middle of so many things right now and have no motivation. I’ll try to get chapter 6 out as soon as I can, but I’m working on a lot of MAP parts, and I have a series of one-shots planned for Lent (none of which I have started). So just bear with me for a while if you can!
> 
> This one is DEPRESSING read the tags I don’t want to hurt anyone. In contrast to Light Shine (which was written to spread a message) this one is written specifically to create an emotional impact (while also still sharing a message). So… yeah!
> 
> I would also like to clarify that even though this fic covers belief in meaninglessness, I don’t actually believe there is no meaning. I write to vent my own emotions, not because I believe the thought processes of characters in my writing are morally true. If you are depressed, I promise things will get better.
> 
> ANYWAY hope you enjoy 
> 
> Disclaimer: This is why I don’t own Ninjago… ooof.

His eyes were like stardust.

Blue, like the deep expanse of space and time, they glowed. Twinkling as galactic irises speckled with dots of light, detailed swirls of lapis and dark blue, they drew her in, calling her into the dark. When he laughed they lit up, a million lights brightening all at once. The twirling expanse reflected onto shiny eyes when he cried tears of joy, and opened up into black holes when his eyelids widened. He burned with a curiosity, a lust for the beautiful tapestry that was the world he lived in, with a pureness few had in a universe of bloodshed. His eyes lit up when no one else’s would.

He would always speak of her smile, how it made the sun shine brighter and caused flowers to grow. For her, it was his eyes.

Those eyes always regained their brightness, no matter how bad a situation. One day she would find him in tears, curled up in a ball on the kitchen floor, the next they showed with more passion than ever, as if he had been refueled. When she asked him about it, he would grin and say “It’s the saddest times that teach us what really matters,” or something like that.  _ How odd _ , she would wonder. How could a human being contain such boundless positivity?

That was Jay, the ninja of boundless positivity.

Nya knew him more than any of the other ninja, and yet he still managed to stump her. Every time they conversed he brought up something else, something new, that she had not seen in him before. Whether it was his favorite pastime or his deepest secret hidden within, she was left with more questions than before she first met him. Who was this person? How could he laugh as if he had never seen war?  _ Because he hasn’t seen it _ , she reasoned.  _ Sure, Jay has fought villains with the most sadistic of intentions, but none of them have succeeded. Either that, or there is something to him, something beyond human. No one can have their hands bathed in blood and wake up the next day like nothing had happened at all. _

The more she thought about it, the more her reasoning failed to stand. Jay was genuine. He cried, and bled, and angered like other humans, but something motivated him to go on. An essence was there, a presence that coursed through his veins, his lifeblood, ongoing forever. He spoke it, sang it, breathed it, as if it were present all over the universe.

_ Hope. _

She first saw it one night, when the dark clouds had faded to reveal the sky hidden beneath. Stars, millions of them, dotted the heavenly plains, extraterrestrial nightlights just like those in his eyes. He was sitting on the deck of the Destiny’s Bounty when she awoke, gazing into the vastness of what existed beyond the atmosphere. 

“Isn’t it beautiful?” He breathed, not once removing his gaze from the night sky. She sat down beside him, watching as his eyes reflected the universe, and it the same. She knew he could sit on the deck forever, and was sure he knew it, too. Though Nya had always had the brains, he had the hearts.

“Sometimes I wish I could go up there, you know?” Extending an arm, he made a grasping motion with his hand, as if encasing the tiny lights between his fingers. “I can feel it, it’s calling me. I know I’ll go up there… some day.” He finally turned to her, a soft smile spread across his freckled face, freckles like stars.

“But we’re ninja, Jay,” Nya reminded him, pulling him in so he could lean on her shoulder. “Our job is down here in Ninjago.” Her voice was a whisper, soft like a breeze as she stroked her fingers through his hair. “Stay down here a moment, my love. Stay with me.”

He closed his eyes, his star speckled eyes. “Someday, when all this is over and we don’t have to fight, we’ll be able to see the stars every night,” he mumbled, falling asleep with each passing second. “Just you wait and see. When we’ve brought light back to the world, you’ll know it, too.”

It was a fantasy, one of his many daydreams about a perfect world devoid of suffering, when they didn’t have to fight an endless war anymore.  _ Pure fiction _ , she thought, for such utopias were not real. Despite this, she would not wake him from his dreams, oh no, at least he still had them.

As if reading her thoughts, he answered in a quiet whisper. “I believe,” he breathed, before he fell asleep.

* * *

His eyes were like oceans.

Deep, like the darkest of trenches, they stared into the farthest ends of existence, and drew out insights unforeseen. His irises, like whirlpools, swirled silently around pupils as black as night. Sometimes all she wished was to stare into the deep ends of his colored orbs, a million shades of blue identical to the waters of the sea. The way his eyes opened like rising tides, how the oceans grew darker when he squinted, it all made her want to let the waves lap around her hands, surrounded by the beauty of the sea.

The waves in his eyes would rise when his values were ignited, forcing him into action with a determination none could expect.

Nya had seen it many times, but rarely to the level of one particular day. The sun rose high above blue waters, sending its rays across elegant waves. She walked beside him along the beach, their movements in perfect harmony, fingers wound around each other comfortingly.

What a beautiful day, what a wondrous gift of the universe. 

That was when she saw it. A child was flailing in the water, crying at the tops of his lungs only for the waves to spill inside of his mouth. So far away from the shore, there was no safe way for a person to reach him, but if no one did, the child would be lost in the ocean forever.

It was a time before she could use her powers. Had she known that the waters flowed through her veins just like they did his eyes, she would have carried the child safely to the comfort of dry land. But it was not that time, and was left only to watch as the young one sunk lower and lower.

Nya had not been the only one to see it. Jay snapped his head to the side, picking up the high pitched wails of death itself. A new state of existence seemed to take over him, one that lacked his nervous trembling or horror struck second thoughts. Only saving the child remained inside his head, saving no thought for his own self. Without a single selfish feeling he dove into the waves, waves that grew taller and taller by the minute. 

“Jay!” she screamed, a cry built of agony and sheer terror. He swam towards his doom, toward a goal he had little chance of achieving. And yet she admired such selflessness, for it was selflessness she had not seen before in his ocean blue eyes. To harm oneself for the safety of another was an honorable act, but one few in Ninjago would take. 

It was an action formed purely of love.

The waves smashed down around him, sending him toppling back, pushing him under the waters, but he kept going. Though never the strongest ninja, somehow he persisted in spite of the ocean’s irresistible force. Somehow, through all impossibility, wet hands clasped around the child who he drew into his chest, tears in his eyes. 

With the waters no longer forcing him away, and instead guiding him along his path, he returned to the shore. The child scrabbled through clingy sand, gasping for air, while Jay took a shuddering stance. He looked up to stare into Nya’s eyes, the oceans of his irises shining in the dim light, before he collapsed, unconscious. 

* * *

His eyes were like Forget Me Nots.

His pupils were seeds as dark as night, so dark they were nearly black, and yet shaded if one paid close enough attention. They brightened in the sun's light, sparkling with the everlasting glow of life itself. Irises fanned out like soft petals, petals like the gift of the heavens, and yet so fragile, as they would tear at the slightest pull. Left undamaged, they glowed with a peace, a beauty, a love that touched the farthest ends of what was unseen. Left undamaged, they were magnificent.

But then, when Nya was certain that no harm would come of them, they tore.

The two had set off on a mission, determined to find a mysterious felon lurking around Ninjago City. After an acknowledgeable amount of investigation they decided the crimes were committed by an amateur, and the lovers agreed that they could deal with the culprit without the help of the other ninja. It would have been rude to interrupt their friends' daily activities, anyway, while they had so much free time.

Their search led them all across the city, from bustling streets to silent alleyways. Along the way Jay’s Forget Me Not blue eyes lit up as he leaped from toe to toe excitedly, intrigued by the beauty of the world around him. From the sparkling lights hanging over store fronts to the hundreds of birds perched over outcroppings, there was so much to explore for an inquisitive person like Jay. They had set off on a serious mission, but never was he hardened by the dark forces of evil. Too much life lived inside, too much purity.

How could Nya have been so foolish to assume he would never be tainted?

She motioned to an alleyway on the outskirts of town, for that was where their lead was taking them. The buildings were mostly abandoned, covered in dirt and grime, and some on the verge of collapsing. The atmosphere radiated with a  _ wrongness _ , a sense that something was brutally amiss in the code of life itself. Her shoulders tensed, with Jay appearing just as hesitant to venture into the darkness as she did.

That wasn’t odd. Jay was famous for freaking out in precarious situations. What was odd was the manner in which he reacted.

“Are you sure this is the way?” He wondered, his voice barely above a whisper. Normally Jay would cry out overdramatically, but this time a new feeling had taken hold: fear of evil over fear of danger. Inside, something told Nya not to take her beloved down such a forsaken path, but she also knew there was no way to avoid it. Jay would not turn back, no matter how much he wanted to. 

“Yes,” she replied hoarsely. “This is the way.”

It was a mistake, she knew it. A horrible, terrible mistake.

A group of homeless people were cramped inside one of the abandoned buildings, where the cold of Ninjago’s winters seeped through the walls and stole away anyone who failed to find adequate warmth. A set of four people, their breathing slowed and eyes drooping, huddled together for warmth, among them  _ children _ . One of the people was no longer moving, their body failing to rise and fall with life giving breaths. The winter had taken another victim.

Nya could only stare. Beside her, Jay sucked in a breath, his eyes as wide as tennis balls and his face as white as snow. His fingers grew so limp that they dropped the nunchucks held inside, which clattered to the floor. Jay had not witnessed the tragedies of human existence before.

Only after a minute or so did he look down. Nya followed his gaze to see a young girl, trembling from head to toe, clutching his shirt between her fingers. Tears fell down her unnaturally pale face, dripping onto bushy brown hair coated in ice. The hands that held onto his hardly had the strength to do so.

“S-sir?” The girl choked, her speech slurred from the cold. “I-I want to see my-my mother.”

Jay only stared at her. Surely his lungs were too frozen to form comprehensive words. Finally, he managed to utter a single thing, a single disbelieving whisper: “What?” The child stumbled forward so that her head pressed against his blue suit, tugging onto it for dear life. He wrapped his hands around her form firmly and brought her to a kneel as they hugged, her eyes drifting shut.

“I just want to find my mother-”

The child fell limp in his arms.

Jay sobbed for hours. His hands remained clenched around the dead girl, as if hoping that somehow his touch would raise her from the dead. As he stroked his fingers through her hair, Nya failed to comfort him, for she had to help the surviving family members to safety. Besides, what could she do? She had already led Jay to the one thing she hoped to keep him from: reality.

He pulled a single Forget Me Not from the snow, a flower that somehow managed to survive so far into winter. Now, destined to die without its roots, he placed it in the girl’s hair. With a body that held no more confidence, no more stability, he climbed to his feet and turned to Nya.

The light in his eyes was gone.

* * *

His eyes were like a void.

Dark as the emptiness between stars, they carried no light. Emotionless, they drooped, lacking the desire to face anything but the dust coated floor. No longer bright with the joys of youth, their color seemed to have faded, an evanescent star, an evaporated ocean, a wilting flower. No longer as shining as the sun, they echoed the songs of a boy who had held so much purity, and had lost everything in a single flash of time. 

Everyone noticed the change. The way he dragged his feet tiredly across the floor, the large sleepless bags under his eyes, the tear stains on his cheeks when one caught him alone, they were all marks of a lost youth. He no longer had a belief in the world anymore, a hope in beauty. His fellow ninja tried to cheer him up, to spark his previous curiosity and daring, but nothing worked. At best he would give a shy smile, before he would sadden once again. At worst he would not look up at all.

Even the citizens of Ninjago began to notice. Children would stray away from his while they badgered his companions. People would whisper as he passed by as if he could not notice. When the police asked the ninja about updates on criminals, they would never address Jay, for they knew he would not answer. In fact, Jay avoided speaking to anyone but his friends, and even then he only spoke a few words.

His friends were concerned. He failed to notice.

Only after months and months of his misery did he finally speak about his predicament, but only to Nya alone.

“What’s the point?” He whispered to her on the deck of the Bounty one dark night. The clouds covered the stars in the night sky, blanketing the once beautiful expanse in lifeless gray. “I’ve lost all purpose, Nya. Everything I cared for is empty.” 

“The point is love,” Nya replied, wrapping her hand around his side. “There was a time when you believed that, you know? I have confidence that you will believe it again, eventually.”

He was not convinced. “You really believe that?”

“I do.” She kissed his cheek. “Just keep fighting a little while longer, and you will, too. I promise I’ll always be by your side.” Unsure whether he would believe her, she eyed him expectantly. Perhaps this time she would need to have enough hope for the both of them.

“Okay,” he breathed. “I’ll try.”

“I know you will.”

* * *

His eyes were like milk.

They did not move, not once, staring into complete nothingness. With red rimmed eyelids he lied on the snow, crimson staining the once pure whiteness. His eyes were so still, a clear sign of lifelessness, but Nya could not accept it. In seconds his chest would rise, his eyes would blink shut and open again, and they would laugh at this moment for years to come. So many times had the ninja appeared dead and managed to survive; this would be no different.

Foolishness.

There was too much blood, blood that spilt from cuts all over his body, blood that slid down his forehead, blood that pooled from an arm that asd nearly severed off. In no way could sweet, lovable Jay have survived a loss of so much blood. Nevermore would he breathe, or laugh, or  _ smile _ . He was gone.

Someone had done this. Jay had been missing for days; someone must have kidnapped him, tortured him to death, and dropped his body in the snow. He had been killed in such a way to cause the most suffering, every single piece of evidence led to the undeniable truth.

The violence was not the worst part, not even the fact that someone had murdered him and left him to dry on the snow. The worst part was that he had said he would try to keep fighting, that he had had a chance at a happier life. He was the purest of the ninja, and yet he had lost his youth, then his happiness, and finally his own life.  _ He died alone, when I had promised I would be with him the entire way. I failed him when I needed him most.  _ Nya knew the truth.

She would never forget.

  
  


**Author's Note:**

> Constructive criticism is appreciated! Again, if this fic is going to influence you, let Jay before the child died be how you act. There are ways to remain positive in spite of sad events, and I believe that, had Jay lived longer in this fic, he would have seen that, too. I just want to make my intentions abundantly clear.


End file.
